Tuesday, 7 December 1999

From "Globalization, Growth and Distribution: Framing the Questions"

By Ravi Kanbur, p. 6.

[...] In Ghana, the North-South divide looms larger than ever in the political economy, despite a decade or more of growth which has reduced measured poverty significantly.(7) In South Africa, the first post-Apartheid decade was characterized by low growth, and increasing inequality and poverty.(8) In the last five years, despite a pick up in growth rates, inequality has continued to increase and income poverty reduction has languished, leading the government to start a discourse on a "second economy", disconnected from the "first economy" which is reaping the benefits of growth. In Chile, spectacular growth and poverty reduction over the past quarter century have not allayed distributional concerns on growing inequality.(9)

[...]

(7) Aryeetey and Mckay (2007.).(8) see Bhorat and Kanbur (2006).(9) Birdsall and Szekely (2003) note: Between 1992 and 1996, Chilean GDP per capita expanded by more than 30 percent in real terms and moderate poverty (headcount ratio declined by 20 percent. But income inequality increased (the Gini index increased by 7 percentage points). Had the income distribution remained as in 1992, the proportion of poor would have actually declined much more, by 50 percent."